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Cracked Wiki:Article titles
This page sets out the Enzyclopedia's policy on how to title articles. For the most part, the Enzyclopedia follows the policies and guidelines of the English language Wikipedia. Many of the Enzyclopedia policies are adaptations of the originals. Deciding an article title The ideal title is: * Recognizable – Using names and terms most commonly used in reliable sources, and so most likely to be recognized, for the topic of the article. * Easy to find – Using names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article (and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles). * Precise – Using names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. * Concise – Using names and terms that are brief and to the point. (Even when disambiguation is necessary, keep that part brief.) * Consistent – Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles. Most articles will have a simple and obvious title that satisfies most or all of these criteria. If so, use it, as a straightforward choice. However, it may be necessary to trade off two or more of the criteria against one another; in such situations, article titles are determined by consensus, usually guided by the usage in reliable sources. Consensus on entitling articles in specific fields, or with respect to particular problems, is stated and explained on the guideline pages referenced. When no consensus exists, it is established through discussion, always with the above principles in mind. The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists. Redirects should be created to articles that may reasonably be searched for or linked to under two or more names (such as different spellings or former names). Conversely, a name that could refer to several different articles may require disambiguation. Common names Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article. Article titles should be neither vulgar nor pedantic. Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name. The following are examples of common names that Wikipedia uses as article titles instead of a more elaborate, formal or scientifically precise alternative: *Ronald Reagan (not "President Ronald Wilson Reagan") *Hulk Hogan (not "Terry Gene Bollea") *Venus de Milo (not "Aphrodite of Melos") *Commander Cody (not "CC-2224") When in doubt, check the name on Wikipedia. Chances are, that is the correct name for the Enzyclopedia as well. When there is no obvious common name for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best. Precision and disambiguation Articles' titles usually merely indicate the name of the topic. When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise but only as precise as is needed. For example, it would be inappropriate to title an article "Star Trek television series (1966–1969)" over Star Trek: The Original Series or "Star Wars multimedia prperty" over Star Wars. Remember that concise titles are generally preferred. However, because pages cannot share the same title, it is not always possible to use the exact title that may be desired for an article, as that title may have another meaning. As a general rule: *If the topic of the article is the primary topic (or only topic) for a desired title, then the article can take that title without modification. *Otherwise that title cannot be used for the article without disambiguation. This is most commonly done by adding a disambiguating tag in parentheses (or sometimes after a comma); however in certain cases it may be done by choosing a different form of the title in order to achieve uniqueness. The disambiguation guideline also contains advice on how to title disambiguation pages when they need to be created. Sometimes titles of separate articles have different forms, but with only minor differences. Examples: * Diacritics: canon vs. cañon; Vitória vs. Vitoria * Capitalization: WASP vs. wasp; Red Meat vs. Red meat * With or without hyphen(s): Saint-Louis vs. Saint Louis In such cases, remember that a reader who enters one term might in fact be looking for the other, so use appropriate disambiguation techniques (such as hatnotes or disambiguation pages) to ensure that readers can find all possible target articles. In case of very minor differences, a parenthethical tag should be added as if the title forms were identical, as in Streets of London (song) and Streets Of London (computer game). Explicit conventions The Enzyclopedia has specific naming conventions relating to specific subject domains. They are as follows: Parody names Because the same character or person can be parodied multiple times, parody names should not be used as the title of an article unless the parody character takes on a life of its own. Typically, articles should be named after the person or character being parodied. * Obi-Wan Kenobi (not "OB1 Finoakie") * Barney Miller (character), (not "Blarney Millner") But Nanny Dickering is the correct name for the Cracked character, even though she was originally based on real-life reporter Nancy Dickerson. On the other hand, when dealing with a parody of a movie, TV show, etc., there should be an article for both the item being parodied and the parody itself. * High Noon (covering the real movie) and "High Noonish" (for its parody) * M*A*S*H (about the show) and "M*U*S*H", "M*A*S*H*E*D", etc. The intention is to give separate articles for different uses. The real-world article is for gathering up *all* appearances of that material: parodies, cameos, stills in The Cracked Lens, etc. The parody article focuses on the details of the parody itself and documents various reprinting and alterations (if any). Large franchises should use a single article to cover all included real world items, instead of individual articles for each item. * Star Wars, not The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, etc. * James Bond Franchise, not The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, etc. If two articles would normally share the same title, the less common name should be disambiguated by the addition of a descriptive in parentheses. If none of the articles have distinctly greater significance, a disambiguation page should be used. * The Talking Blob (parody) and The Talking Blob * M*U*S*H (Cracked 144) and M*U*S*H (Cracked 156), with disambiguation page M*U*S*H Cracked article and feature names Articles concerning one-off articles from Cracked should be named exactly as the original article appears in the magazine, ignoring any quotation marks that may be included, but including any punctuation that may be left out of the table of contents. For instance, from Cracked No. 173, "A Dozen Things Never to do at the Beach..." not "A Dozen Cracked Things Never to do at the Beach", as is shown in the contents. Regular features need only one article, despite alterations to their titles both on-page and in the contents. Again, examples from Cracked No. 173. * "Ye Hang Ups" (as it almost always appeared on-page), not "Hang-Ups" (as it often appeared in the TOC). * "The Cracked Lens", not "Absolutely, Unquestionably, Positively, Undeniably, The Very, Very, Last of The Cracked Lens (and we mean it this time!)" When linking to these articles, piping ("|") can be used to link to the appropriate article, while displaying the individual name. Article title format * Use lower case, except for proper names: The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized; subsequent words in a title are not, unless they are part of a proper name, and so would be capitalized in running text; when this is done, the title will be simple to link to in other articles: Star Wars is a successful science fiction property. For initial lower case letters, as in eBay, see the Wikipedia technical restrictions page. * Use the singular form: Article titles are generally singular in form, e.g. Horse not Horses. Exceptions include nouns that are always in a plural form in English (e.g. scissors or trousers) and the names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages). * Avoid definite and indefinite articles: Do not place definite or indefinite articles (the, a'' and ''an) at the beginning of titles unless they are part of a proper name (e.g. The Old Man and the Sea) or otherwise change the meaning (e.g. The Crown). * Do not enclose titles in quotes: Article titles which are quotes (or song titles, etc.) are not enclosed in quotation marks (e.g. To be, or not to be is the article while "To be, or not to be" is a redirect to that article). Special characters and formatting See Wikipedia technical restrictions on naming conventions There are technical restrictions on the use of certain characters in page titles. The characters #, <, >, ,, |, {, and } at all and there are certain restrictions on titles containing colons, periods and some other characters. Technically all other Unicode characters can be used in page titles. However the following should be noted: * '''Provide redirects to non-keyboard characters:' If use of diacritics (accent marks) is in accordance with the English-language name, or other characters not present on standard keyboards are used, such as dashes, provide a redirect from the equivalent title using standard English-language keyboard characters. * Avoid accent-/quote-like characters: Accent-like and/or quote-like characters (e.g. , c, combining diacritical marks combined with a "space" character) should be avoided in page names. A common exception is the apostrophe ' (e.g. Anthony d'Offay), which should, however, be used sparingly (e.g. Shia instead of Shi'a). * Do not use non-language characters: Non-language characters such as "♥", as sometimes found in advertisements or logos, should never be used in titles. * Consider browser support: If there is a reasonable alternative, avoid symbols which are so rare that many browsers will not render them. For example, the article on Weierstrass p carries that title rather than the symbol itself, which many readers would see as just a square box. * Do not apply formatting: Formatting, such as italics or bolding, is technically achievable in page titles, but is used only in special cases. An example of such an exception is to produce italics for taxonomic names of genera and species. (See italics and formatting restrictions.) Category:Content policy